At Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen, a Change in Ownership Doesn’t Mean a Change in Vibe (2024)

Nia Grace knows the importance of the space at 604 Columbus Ave. in Boston’s South End. She grew up in Roxbury and Dorchester, attended Mission Grammar and Cathedral High, and, despite sojourns to Miami and New York City, has spent much of her adult life living in her native Boston. So when she bought from former owner Darryl Settles in September, she did so with purpose.

“This place has been a cornerstone for generational meet-ups,” Grace told Eater. “And it’s time for our generation to come in and be here.”

The sale places Grace on a short list of women of color who own restaurants in Boston. Grace acknowledges that fact but rightly wishes it weren’t the case.

“It’s a great feat, but it shouldn’t be this hard,” she said. “It should be the norm.”

Nia Grace [Official Photo]

The Darryl’s location has an illustrious history. For much of the last 61 years, diners have been able to feast on soul food like chitlins and fried chicken. For decades, the space was occupied by a hole in the wall called Bob the Chef’s, which had a walk-up takeout window on Columbus Street. Settles, who bought Bob the Chef’s in 1990, eventually renamed the restaurant to what it is now.

Along with excellent soul food, the other draw at Darryl’s is the live music. (The jazz brunch offers the best of both worlds.) The hybrid restaurant and venue is best known for hosting jazz acts, but Grace — who has a background in music promotion — intends Darryl’s to be an incubator for an eclectic mix of musicians.

“We want to have jazz acts, but we also want to have R&B, Latin music, bachata, reggaeton, reggae, and roots,” Grace said. “I’m asking myself, ‘How do we liven this up, how do we talk to a millennial population? What do you like, what do you want to do?’”

When Settles was ready to sell the business, Grace was the perfect choice. Her prior career in music promotion gave her the knowledge she’d need to book and promote bands, and her time spent as the general manager of Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen — a job she held for two years before becoming the owner — gave her the knowledge she needed about running the business.

“She did a fantastic job and was a very hard worker who thrived on excellence,” Settles told Eater via email. “She casually mentioned to me at an event that she and a few investors were looking to purchase an existing restaurant business. At the time, I was not looking to sell, but once I thought about it, I knew she would be the right person to carry on the legacy. Furthermore, and really important, was that she was from the community.”

That word — community — is important to Grace. When she was considering buying the business, she thought a lot about the the staff and how a sale might affect them.

“A major concern was making sure I could retain the staff,” said Grace. “We have 34 people who work here between the front of the house, the back of the house, people who do maintenance, and people who help with the nightlife. They’ve all built relationships with our patrons and with the neighborhood. I love my community, and to me this is the epitome of being part of a community.”

Grace described that community — that is to say, the South End — as a pivotal neighborhood with much racial and class intersection. And it’s a neighborhood that’s been gentrified and whitewashed unlike any other in the city.

“I talk to people in their 60s and 70s, and they tell me what the neighborhood use to look like,” said Grace. “We don’t recognize anything, and this is a place we used to call home.”

“We’ve been pushed out to other pockets of the city, and many of us can’t recognize a neighborhood that’s developed into this very wealthy place. And we were the ones who lived here and developed it! We can’t lose that corner.”

There was a moment in the space’s history where that thread of community seemed to slip away, however. In 2008, Settles sold to an operator who was new to Boston, had no sense of the history of the building, and tried to change the concept. Things didn’t go well for the new operator, and Settles decided to buy the space back in 2010. He opened Darryl’s Corner Bar & Kitchen soon after and restored a sense of balance to the South End. He was compelled to do so by the influence of what came before.

“As far as being important to the neighborhood, Bob the Chef’s was founded in 1957 and it was practically the first restaurant that had a real diverse clientele in Boston,” said Settles, “and to this day, it still can say the same. Also, it has weekly performances from some of the coolest and most talented musicians the city has to offer. It is the Cheers of Black Boston, where all feel comfortable.”

Grace intends to carry on that legacy and hopes to carry the space to its centenary. She wants patrons to feel like it’s their place to make connections, to network, to get to know their neighbors and their neighborhood. She delights in all of it, and she wants to be part of all of it, too.

“I’ll be on the floor with you, I’ll be wiping tables, I’m gonna dance with you, I’m gonna serve you,” she said. “I’ve always been behind the scenes, never really in the forefront because i’m the creative. I like to see your experience, I like to see your face, I wanna see you rock.”

She laughed a little, and then she admitted: “Now I’ll be at the forefront.”

When you enter Darryl’s, you’ll quickly notice that the walls are covered with paintings that wouldn’t be out of place at the Museum of Modern Art. The triptych hung behind the place where musicians perform is by a Boston-based artist named Robert Freeman.

The rest are by a New Orleans-based artist named Wayne Manns. Manns’s work is vivid and bright and looks like a marriage of the works of Kerry James Marshall, William H. Johnson, and Max Beckmann. And each of Manns’s paintings is framed by pieces of wood he found in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Paintings by Wayne Manns

“I found them at a late-night — midnight — artist collaborative,” said Settles. “It turns out the artist is the son of one of jazz superstar Miles Davis’s pianists. I fell in love with the work and did one of my famous asks: I asked him to give me an offer that I would not refuse to take all of his work on display. He did, and now I have them for the rest of my life.”

The paintings won’t hang at Darryl’s forever — Settles loaned them to Grace for six months, and eventually they’ll come down. That’s okay, though — some things will inevitably change as Grace puts her own stamp on 604 Columbus Avenue.